La prima notte di quiete

Plot

While a teacher is on sick leave, despite his dishevelled appearance and an employment history with unexplained gaps, Daniele is hired to take a class in Rimini. To get to know his pupils, he asks them to write a free essay or, if they prefer, one on the writer Manzoni. To his surprise, only one chooses the latter, the quiet and very attractive Vanina, who increasingly absorbs his attention. He talks to her when he can and gives her the book Vanina Vanini by Stendhal. In his free time, he leaves his partner Monica to herself (they sleep apart) while he gets to know a group of local men who enjoy drinking, gambling, recreational drugs, fast cars and easy women. Prominent among them are a crooked businessman Gerardo, who drives an ostentatious Lamborghini and is the lover of Vanina, and Spider, a gay pharmacist who is secretly a devout Catholic and lover of poetry.

Daniele takes the withdrawn Vanina to see a wall painting by Piero della Francesca and on the way back they share a kiss. When Spider's birthday comes round, after going to a disco where Vanina sulks and will not dance, the group end up at Gerardo's luxurious house. In revenge he shows a home movie, which starts innocently with Vanina on holiday but turns into a sex tape. She switches off the electricity and Gerardo asks everybody to leave. Next day Vanina does not turn up at school and Daniele goes to the house of her mother, who with threats warns him to stay away from her daughter. Going home, he faces trouble from Monica, who tolerates his evenings out with other men but not his growing obsession over his pupil. In addition, Spider has fallen in love with him and has found a book of poems he wrote called The First Night of Stillness. When Spider asks the significance of the title, Daniele says it is taken from Goethe: after you die, you have your first night without dreams.

Another friend Marcello, a real estate agent with empty properties to sell, takes Daniele to a solitary house by the sea he has allowed Vanina to hide in. After the two have made love, they are woken by a furious Gerardo who has been looking for his runaway lover. He tells Daniele that Vanina was a child prostitute, managed by her mother, who has been enjoyed by most men in town and some women too. Daniele then gets the better of him in a fight and he leaves. Putting Vanina on a train to stay with her sister, Daniele goes home to tell Monica he is leaving her, to which she replies that she will kill herself. When he stops at a bar to ring Monica, the phone is not answered and as he leaves he is professionally beaten up by the lover of Vanina's mother. Rescued by Marcello, he is looked after by Spider and when able to move decides to go to Vanina. Driving erractically through fog, after stopping to ring Monica's number yet again he runs into a truck and is killed. The only character to go to his funeral is Spider, who is amazed to find that he was the last son of a noble family living in a grand palazzo and that his father was a revered war hero.

Cast

Production

Delon and the director clashed during filmmaking.

Reception

The film was only a mild success in France but was the seventh most popular movie of the year in Italy.